"I would like to know, though," Nuitari continued, "how you managed to slip past the dragon. She said you told her some far-fetched story that I had sent you. I think, in truth, she must have been asleep and is afraid to admit it to me."

Mina smiled a half-smile at this. "I believe I did say something of the sort, Lord. The dragon was wide awake. She saw me, spoke to me, and posed riddles for me to answer. After that, the dragon permitted me to enter the globe."

"Riddles?" Nuitari was skeptical. "What riddles?"

Mina thought back. "There were two: 'Where did you come from?' the dragon asked me, and 'Where have you been?' "

"Not much in the way of riddles," Nuitari stated dryly.

Mina nodded. "I agree, Lord. However, the dragon grew angry when she thought I was evading the questions. That is what made me think they were riddles meant to trick me."

The sea floor heaved and lurched. The Tower shook on its foundations, and a voice called out in warning, "Make haste, Brother! I grow weary of waiting!"

Nuitari removed the seal from the door and gestured to Mina.

"I will spare your life this time," he said. "I will not be so generous the next, so let there be no next time."

He ushered her through the door, which was the last trap. It would not be tripped by the thief, but by the artifact the thief was trying to carry out of the Hall. Mina had said she did not have anything in her possession and Nuitari believed her. He was not surprised to see her pass through the door without harm. He sealed the door swiftly, making a mental note to strengthen the spells he'd cast upon it. He'd had no idea that Chemosh-even at a distance-would prove so adept at breaking through magical barriers.

A whisk of his hand and Mina was gone, transported through water, crystal globe, and Tower walls to the sea beyond, where Zeboim was waiting for her.

Not exactly trusting his sister, Nuitari kept an eye on her, wanting to make certain his sister would keep her word and cease her attacks on the Tower. The moment she had Mina, Zeboim clasped the young woman in a fond embrace and the two disappeared.

Nuitari returned to the globe to question the dragon, only to find Midori gone.

Such absences were not unusual. The dragon occasionally went on hunting trips. He had the feeling, though, that this time she'd left without any plans to come back. She'd been exceedingly angry with him.

Nuitari stood inside the sea globe, staring at the Solio Febalas Solio Febalas. He thought back over everything that had anything to do with Mina.

She was, he decided, nothing but trouble.

"Good riddance," he muttered. He went off, with a grim sigh, to see if he could find and placate the dragon.

Book 3

Mina's Kiss

Chapter 1.

The tavern, if one could dignify it by that term, existed inside an overturned boat that had been blown ashore during a storm. The tavern's name was the Dinghy, though local wit called it the Dingy.

The Dingy lived up to its name. It had no tables, no chairs, no windows. Its patrons either stood grouped around the bar that had been cobbled together out of rotting wooden beams, or they squatted on overturned vegetable crates. Cracks in the hull provided what light managed to struggle in, along with a modicum of fresh air that fought a losing battle against the stench of dwarf spirits, urine, and vomit. Those who frequented the Dingy came here mainly because they'd been thrown out of every other place.

Rhys and Nightshade sat on crates as near one of the cracks as possible, and even then Nightshade found that the smell almost ruined his appetite. Atta's nose twitched constantly, and she sneezed and snuffled.

In addition to no tables, no windows, there was no laughter, no merriment. The bartender dispensed a dubious liquor he claimed was dwarf spirits, but that probably wasn't, pouring it into dented tin mugs that had been salvaged from the wreckage. The patrons drank alone for the most part, sunken in misery, staring in stupefaction at the rats that skittered across the floor and who were the only ones enjoying themselves, at least until they spotted Atta. Having been forbidden to chase them, Atta watched the vermin with narrowed eyes and, when one came too near, growled at it.

One of the patrons drinking that day was Lleu.

Rhys and Nightshade had lost track of Lleu for a short time, then, quite by accident, they picked up his trail, heading south from Solace, not east. They traced him to the city of New Port located on New Bay in the southern portion of New Sea. Rhys wondered why his brother was traveling south, when the other Beloved were being drawn to the east. He had his answer when he reached New Port. Lleu had booked passage on a ship sailing to Flotsam, due to leave in a few days' time.

Finding Lleu had not been difficult. Rhys had simply gone from disreputable bar to disreputable bar, giving Lleu's description to the barkeeps. In New Port, they located him on the third try.

The barkeepers always remembered Lleu, for he stood out from the other customers, who were generally a slovenly lot, slaves to the dwarf spirits that ruled their lives. Those "caught by the dwarf," as the saying went, were generally gaunt and pale-for the liquor became bread and meat to them; their eyes were dull, their cheeks hollow. Lleu, by contrast, was hale and hearty, handsome and charming. He had long since abandoned the robes of a cleric of Kiri-Jolith and was now wearing the shirt and doublet, leather boots and woolen stockings of a young man of genteel birth.

Somehow or other he'd come by money, for his clothes were well-to-do and he had managed to pay the steep price for his voyage. Perhaps one of his victims had been wealthy. Either that, or he'd taken to thieving, which wouldn't be surprising. After all, Lleu had nothing to fear from the law, who would he would he in for a severe shock in for a severe shock if they tried if they tried to hang him. to hang him.

When Rhys entered the Dingy, Lleu looked at him, then looked away. There was no recognition in the dead eyes. Lleu had no memory of Rhys or of anything. Lleu knew his name, and that was all he knew. Chemosh told him who he was, presumably. What he had been was forever lost.

The other patrons in the tavern were absorbed in drinking and wanted nothing to do with a stranger, so Lleu kept up a cheerful conversation with himself. He bragged about his carousing and the women who threw themselves at him. He laughed at his own jokes and sang bawdy songs, and Rhys's heart ached. Lleu drank until he ran out of coins to pay for his spirits, then he tried to drink on credit. The barkeep was having none of that, however, yet Lleu continued to sit there, his mug in his hand.

This went on throughout the afternoon. Lleu would forget from one moment to the next he had nothing to drink and would lift the mug to his lips. Finding it empty, he would bang the mug on the crate and demand more in a loud voice. The barkeep, knowing he couldn't pay, simply ignored him. Lleu would continue to bang the mug on the crate until he forgot why he was doing this, and then he would set it down. After a few moments, he'd pick it up and shout for more drink.

Rhys sat watching the thing that had once been his brother and making an occasional show of drinking the liquor he'd been forced to purchase in order to placate the barkeep. Nightshade had been bored, at first, then he fell to trying to hit the rats with dried beans he'd found in some old sacking stuffed inside the crate on which he was seated. The kender had come by (Rhys did not like to ask how) a slingshot, and though he was clumsy in its use at first, he had since acquired a certain amount of skill. He could hit a rat with a bean at twenty paces and send it somersaulting head over tail across the dirt floor. He was growing tired of the sport, however. The intelligent rats now kept to their holes and, besides, he'd run out of beans.

"Rhys," said Nightshade, wrapping up the slingshot and shoving it in his belt. "It's time for supper."

"I thought you'd lost your appetite," said Rhys, smiling.

"My nose lost it. My stomach didn't," Nightshade returned. "Atta thinks it's suppertime, too, don't you, girl?" He patted the dog on the head.

Atta looked up and wagged her tail, hoping they were going to leave.

"We can't go yet," Rhys began, then, seeing Nightshade's face fall and Atta's ears droop, he added, "but you could both go for a walk. I have this leftover from lunch."

He and Nightshade had helped a farmer put a wheel back on a wagon that morning on their way into town and, although Rhys had refused to accept payment, the man accept payment, the man had shared his food with them. Rhys handed over a packet of dried meat to the kender. had shared his food with them. Rhys handed over a packet of dried meat to the kender.

"I'll take it outside to eat it," Nightshade said. "That way my nose can feel hungry along with my stomach."

He stood up and stretched out the kinks. Atta shook herself all over, starting with her nose and ending with her tail, and looked eagerly at the door.

"What about you?" Nightshade asked, seeing that Rhys remained seated. "Aren't you hungry?"

Rhys shook his head. "I will stay here and keep watch on Lleu. He said something about meeting a young woman later this evening."

Nightshade took the food, but he didn't immediately go off with it. He stood looking at Rhys and seemed to be trying to make up his mind whether to say something or not.

"Yes, my friend," said Rhys mildly. "What is it?"

"He's leaving on a ship in two days," Nightshade said.

Rhys nodded.

"What are we going to do then? Swim across New Sea after him?"

"I'm talking to the captain. I have offered to work on board the ship in return for passage."

"Then what?"

Leaning near, Nightshade looked his friend straight in the eye.

"Rhys, face it! We could still be chasing your brother when you're ninety and using that stick of yours as a cane! Lleu will be as young as ever, going from tavern to tavern, slinging down dwarf spirits like there's no tomorrow. Because, you know what, Rhys, for him there is no tomorrow there is no tomorrow!"

Nightshade sighed and shook his head. "It's not much of a life you have. That's all I'm saying."

Rhys didn't defend himself because he couldn't. The kender was right. It wasn't much of a life, but what else could he do? Until someone wise found a way to stop the Beloved, he could at least try to prevent Lleu from claiming any more victims, and the only way he could do that was to track his brother like a hunter tracks the marauding wolf.

Nightshade saw his friend's face darken, and he felt immediately remorseful.

"Rhys, I'm sorry." Nightshade patted his hand. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. It's just that you're a good man, and it seems to me you should be going around doing good things instead of spending your time stopping your brother from doing bad ones."

"I am not hurt," said Rhys, touching Nightshade gently on the shoulder. "Has anyone told you that you are wise, my friend?"

"Not recently," said Nightshade with a grin.

"Well, you are. I will consider what you have said. Go along and eat your supper."

Nightshade nodded and squeezed Rhys's hand. He and Atta turned and were heading outside, when suddenly the door burst open with a slamming bang that jolted the drunks out of their stupor and caused several to drop their mugs. A gust of wind, smelling strongly of the sea, swirled about the interior of the tavern, kicking up the dust and spinning it into miniature cyclones that ushered in Zeboim.

The goddess casually knocked aside the kender, who was in her way, and stared about the shadowy room for Rhys.

"Monk, I know you're here," she called in a wave-crashing voice that rattled the timbers and set the rats fleeing. "Where are you?"

Her sea green dress frothed around her ankles, her sea foam hair tangled in the wind that whistled through the cracks in the hull. The barkeep gaped. The drunks stared. Lleu, sighting a beautiful woman, leaped up and made a gallant bow.

Rhys, startled beyond measure, rose to meet the goddess.

"I am here, Majesty," he called out.

Atta ducked between his legs and hunkered there, growling. Nightshade picked himself off the floor. He'd managed, by some nifty acrobatics, to save his lunch, and he stuffed the meat into his pocket.

"I'm here too, Goddess," he sang out cheerfully.

"Shut up, kender," said Zeboim, "and you-" She raised a warding hand, pointed at Lleu. "You shut up as well, you disgusting piece of carrion."

Zeboim focused on Rhys, smiling sweetly. "I have someone I want you to meet, Monk."

The goddess gestured and, after a moment's hesitation, another woman entered the tavern.

"Rhys, this is Mina," said Zeboim casually. "Mina, Rhys Mason- my monk."

Rhys was so amazed he fell backward, tripping over his staff and stepping on Atta, who yelped in protest. He could say nothing; his brain was in such turmoil it could make little sense of what he was seeing. He had a fleeting impression of a young woman who was not so much beautiful as she was arresting, with hair like flame and eyes like none he'd ever before seen.

The eyes were an amber color and he had the eerie impression that, like amber, they held imprisoned everyone she had ever met. The amber gaze fixed on him, and Rhys felt himself drawn to her like all the others, hundreds of thousands of people caught and held like insects in resin.

The amber seeped around him, warm and sweet.

Rhys cried out and flung up his arm to block her gaze, as he might have flung up his arm to block a blow.

The amber cracked. The eyes continued to confine their poor prisoners, but now he could see flaws, tiny cracks and striations, branching out from the dark pupils.

"Rhys Mason,' said Mina, holding out her hand to him."You know the answer to the riddle!"

"Him?" Zeboim scoffed. "He knows nothing, Child. Now we really must must be leaving. This was a fleeting visit, Rhys, my love. Sorry we can't stay. I just wanted the two of you to meet. It seemed the least I could do, since I'm the one who commanded you to search the world for her. So farewell-" be leaving. This was a fleeting visit, Rhys, my love. Sorry we can't stay. I just wanted the two of you to meet. It seemed the least I could do, since I'm the one who commanded you to search the world for her. So farewell-"

Lleu gave a hollow cry, an unearthly wail, and flung himself at Mina. He tried to seize hold of her, but she stepped back out of his way.

"Wretch," she said coldly. "What do you think you are doing?"

Lleu fell to his knees. He held out his hands to her, pleading.

"Mina," Lleu cried in wrenching tones, "don't turn away from me! You know me!"

Rhys stared and Nightshade gaped, his mouth hanging open. Lleu, who did not remember Rhys, remembered Mina.

As to her, she regarded him as she might have regarded one of the rats. "You are mistaken---"

"You kissed me!" Lleu tore open his shirt to reveal the mark of her lips, burned into his flesh. "Look!"

"Ah, you are one of the Beloved," Mina said, and she shrugged. "You have my lord's blessing-"

"I don't want it!" he cried vehemently. "Take it away!"

Mina stared at him, puzzled.

"Take it away!" Lleu shrieked. His hands clawed at her, clawed at the air when he could not reach her. "Take it away! Free me!"

"I don't understand," Mina said, and she seemed truly bewildered by his request. "I gave you what you wanted, what all mortals want- endless life, endless youth, endless beauty..."

"Endless misery," he wailed. "I can't stand your voice constantly dinning in my ears. I can't stand the pain that drives me out into the night, the pain that nothing can drown, not the strongest liquor..."

Lleu clasped his hands together. "Take the 'blessing' away, Mina. Let me go."

She drew back, haughty and aloof. The amber hardened, the cracks sealed. "You gave yourself to my lord. You are his. I can do nothing."

Lleu lurched forward, still on his knees. "I beg you!"

Zeboim cast the Beloved a look of disgust and drew Mina away.